Make Out with Murder by Lawrence Block Page A

to his left with a great many books and magazines piled sloppily on it.
    He looked up when I entered, which I guess is not too surprising, and he blinked rapidly when I told him who I was.
    “Yes, Mr. Haig called me. So I’ve been awaiting you. But somehow I expected an older man. Aren’t you a little young to be a detective? And didn’t I see you at the funeral?”
    I gave him a qualified yes. Since I wasn’t officially a detective the first question was hard to answer. And the second was impossible; I had been at the funeral, and I saw him there, but how did I know whether he saw me?
    “Have a seat,” he said. “Or should we go somewhere and have a cup of coffee? But I don’t think we’ll be disturbed here today. My Saturdays are usually quiet. I tend to mail orders and such matters. That’s if I’m not out of town working a convention. The A.N.A. is coming up in two weeks. It’s in Boston this year, you know.”
    I didn’t. I also didn’t know what the A.N.A. was, but I’ve since learned. It’s the American Numismatic Association, and it’s the most important coin convention of the year. He went on to tell me that he had a bourse table reserved and expected to be bidding on some choice lots in the auction. Large cents, I think he said.
    “I understand you believe Melanie was murdered,” he said. “I’m reading between the lines there. Your Mr. Haig was deliberately vague. Dear me, I’ve made an unintentional rhyme, haven’t I? Your Mr. Haig/Was deliberately vague. And I gather you have a client in this matter?”
    “Yes.”
    “I don’t suppose you could tell me who it is?”
    Haig had said I could, and so I did. I told him one of hem, anyway.
    “Caitlin! Extraordinary.”
    I wanted to ask him why it was extraordinary. Instead I started asking him some questions about his wife, Robin. Had she seemed at all nervous in the weeks immediately receding her death? Had her behavior changed in any remarkable way?
    He squinted in concentration and I swear his nose witched like a bunny’s. “As if she had some precognitive feelings about her fate? I never thought of that.”
    “Or as if she were afraid someone would murder her.”
    “Dear me. Now that’s a speculation I’ve never entertained. Just let me think now. Do you know, I can’t even concentrate on her attitude then because the whole idea of her having been murdered is so startling to me.”
    I nodded.
    “Naturally I blamed myself for her death. After all, I was driving. I have a tendency to let my mind wander when I drive. Especially when tired, and I was tired that day; it had been a grueling weekend.” He leaned forward and pressed his forehead with the fingertips of one hand. “I had never had an accident before. My woolgathering never seemed to interfere with my driving. Although I could never help thinking that if I had been paying a bit more attention to what I was doing I might have seen that patch of ice.” He moved his hand to shade his eyes. “And Robin might be alive today.”
    I didn’t say anything for a minute or two. He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and straightened up on his stool. He forced his smile back in place.
    A wistful look came into his eyes. “There’s something I’ve always wondered about, Chip. May I call you that?”
    “Sure.”
    “Something I’ve always wondered about. That skid I took. I grew up in an area where winter was long and severe. I learned to drive on snow and ice, how to react to sudden skids. Not to fight the wheel, to turn with the skid, all of those actions that are contrary to instinct and must consequently be learned and reinforced. And on the day of the accident I reacted as I had been trained to react.”
    “But it didn’t work.”
    “No, it did not. And I’ve wondered if there couldn’t have been a possibility of mechanical failure involved. I had the car looked at. It wasn’t damaged all that severely, and if Robin had been sitting beside me and wearing a