The Hanged Man by Walter Satterthwait

very best exercises possible.
    And so I drove north toward Agua Caliente and I admired the scenery and I felt properly humble and I thought about what I’d learned from Brad Freefall and Sylvia Morningstar.
    Once again, when Brad and I returned to the living room, it had been Sylvia who had done most of the talking. Her account of the get-together last Saturday night didn’t differ, in any significant way, from the accounts given by Justine Bouvier and Bennett Hadley, or from what I’d read in the police reports. Except that Sylvia minimized the violence of Bernardi’s attack on Bouvier, tried to make the confrontation sound less like an actual physical assault than a spunky debate that had gotten a bit out of hand. Brad had sat there, quietly deferring to her. I got the impression that he usually deferred to her: that she provided the strength in the relationship.
    When I asked her about her guests that night, I learned that Sylvia, unlike Bouvier and Hadley, didn’t have an unkind word to say about anyone, anyhow, in this life or any other. According to her, all the people who had been there when Bouvier was killed were paragons of probity and kindness, selfless souls dedicated to the betterment of mankind. After the earlier interviews, it was refreshing to listen to someone for whom derision wasn’t a hobby. But it was also less than illuminating.
    Brad, when I talked to him alone in Bouvier’s bedroom, had been a bit more helpful.
    I had set him up, of course, put him at ease and then sandbagged him with the question about Justine Bouvier. And, as I’d thought, Brad didn’t possess the emotional equipment—duplicity, we call it in the trade—to carry off a convincing denial.
    As he went pale, he had said, “What?” He tried for a smile, and it came off sickly.
    I grinned at him, man to man. This didn’t come off too well, either—it was almost a leer, and it made me feel slightly tainted. “Come on, Brad,” I said. “It was probably no big deal. A quick roll in the hay, right?”
    He surprised me then by blushing. A lot of people in Santa Fe did things that deserved a blush or two, but Brad and Sylvia were the first people I’d seen in a long while who actually came through with one. For a moment he said nothing. He blinked. He took a deep breath. He sighed, and then he said, with more sadness than anger, “The bitch.”
    My turn to say nothing.
    He said, “She’s the only one could’ve told you.” But there was a thin note of doubt running through his voice, and a questioning, almost anxious look on his healthy, open face.
    Still I said nothing. Brad had the ball and I let him run with it.
    â€œI begged her not to tell anyone,” he said. “I warned her. I told her that if Sylvie ever found out, I’d …” He frowned, looked away.
    Kill her? Make her listen to rap music?
    He sighed again, looked down, shook his head. “Ah shit, man.” He took his hands from his back pockets and sat down on the bare mattress, arms on his thighs, shoulders bowed, head down.
    I sat down myself, atop the dresser. “She didn’t tell me, Brad.”
    He looked up, puzzled, perhaps a bit alarmed, afraid it might have been someone else.
    â€œNo one did,” I said. “It was a guess. A shot in the dark. I saw how you reacted when I mentioned her name. And I’ve met the woman.”
    Not quite believing me, but clearly wanting to, he said, “She didn’t say anything about me?”
    â€œNothing about any kind of relationship.”
    His face went suddenly sour. “Shit, man, it wasn’t any kinda relationship. It was a one-shot deal. She showed up here one night when Sylvie was out of town. Came to the door wearing a fur coat and nothing else. Even then, man, nothing would’ve happened, probably, except that I was feeling down, you know? Missing Sylvie and all. I had some weed in